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I think, something should be invented, which triggers the "first active post" of a visitor. Id it's called "Beginner section", of something with "Questions" ... I don't know. What's the best psychological trick in this interest?

I think, once the first post is done, the chance is opened, that this might a real new member, who becomes assimilated.

The proposed beginner's area would only be useful if it remains uncluttered by theory.

Sometimes theory is needed for dating issues - for instance, the dates of early cards, luxury and printed sheets, and some documentary sources, like the Steele Sermon. But the theoretical approaches to these problems can be simply stated and the insecurity left unresolved; as much as possible, then, theories, our own and those of others, should be left out of anything which is set up as a permanent reference point for beginners.

Already RLG's Ur-Tarot question is overwhelmed by Huck's theories, and it is very hard for a beginner to sort out what is Huck's opinion and what is indisputable fact.

But.... I choose to talk because a sort of window seems to open in this Forum at the moment.

Since more than 6/7 years may be I participate to Aeclectic Tarot Forum.

As soon I heard about Tarot History Forum, I subscribed too.

A new tool, a new place with more targeted/specialized items, with a good spirit of research and communication.

Frankly, may be because of my French origin and/or my level of education (who knows), I found instantly that way Forum was organized was/is disturbing:
Designed as a British Club of Gentlemen, this Forum with his Items zones is not clear at all:
We have to read a long wording explaining that we are in the Library, the Room, The Tea room or other places.
Amusing yes and original of course... But useless because I don't understand quickly where I am.
I am lost in the Manor in fact ha ha !!
Of course after days and days I can remember where to go. More or less.
But it's always a first effort to do: I am French you know and for sure neither British nor Anglo Saxon.
Consider me as a Latin fellow (My mother has Spanish blood and my Father is French as long as I can search).

This is for the skin; now let’s talk about the flesh/materials:
I was very attracted by the compare decks parts (a great idea Thanks Robert !) and the dedicated to one deck part: When you go to this area you know why and find fellows who discuss the same subject. A very normal and important place for an amatory or a searcher who want to have a complete scope on a specific deck.
A pleasant place is also (should I say was ?) the place (where ? I don’t know. See above) where we can talk freely about ourselves: Our origin, experiences, Computer Room organization ect… A place to exchange views about life and Tarot, how we see things could evaluate and so on..
I am not a tarot historian as some may be presented and don’t want to be: This is not my way, pleasure, education.
But I read historians discussion and can accept their point of view.
They just write too many words and are full of references. Too much for a non member of this “category”.
Crackpot theories are often amusing and are always interesting for me because it shows me how people can be manipulated and how theories creators can block themselves by unconsciously rejecting elements that don’t fit with their theory.
May be conscientiously if there are only motivated by Money and Power of course.
I think that this Forum has to considerably change his skin and body for attracting young curious fellows, old tarot amatory and open minded people.
When a Forum turn only with 4/5 writers/participating fellows and mostly “registered tarot historians”, it means that there IS a problem.
ATF is not a reference that has to be duplicated but I think that some of my critics are grounded even it is not pleasant to read (and to be written by myself) by his creators and some participants.

This is my contribution to our debates about Future of this good idea that is/was Tarot History Forum.
Now I go back to my potatoes and my garden and wait for a hard rain…. That could rather spread on me than my soil hu hu !!

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:The proposed beginner's area would only be useful if it remains uncluttered by theory.
[...]Already RLG's Ur-Tarot question is overwhelmed by Huck's theories, and it is very hard for a beginner to sort out what is Huck's opinion and what is indisputable fact.

I completely and definitely agree with this, aren't we coming back to the idea of a "real facts and items sheet" or "essential bricks of tarot history" we talked about earlier ?

Maybe we should try to use a closed-wiki to set up a list of facts, which could all be evaluated from "certain" to "most probably crackpot" (or from 1[certain] to 22[risky speculation]).
Then a chronological representation from past to present could represent those facts, events, items with a visual representation of the evaluation (green to red or left to right).
Someone should create an online multi-users application to do just that...

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:The proposed beginner's area would only be useful if it remains uncluttered by theory.
[...]Already RLG's Ur-Tarot question is overwhelmed by Huck's theories, and it is very hard for a beginner to sort out what is Huck's opinion and what is indisputable fact.

I completely and definitely agree with this, aren't we coming back to the idea of a "real facts and items sheet" or "essential bricks of tarot history" we talked about earlier ?

Maybe we should try to use a closed-wiki to set up a list of facts, which could all be evaluated from "certain" to "most probably crackpot" (or from 1[certain] to 22[risky speculation]).
Then a chronological representation from past to present could represent those facts, events, items with a visual representation of the evaluation (green to red or left to right).
Someone should create an online multi-users application to do just that...

I really appreciate all of the feedback, and welcome everyone's opinions on how to move forward.

If we decide to offer a beginners area, I was thinking of creating some open threads, sort of like we did with Bianca's garden, where there was a sort of order to what was there, but also an opportunity for participation and discussion. I imagine another "room" (unless we drop the metaphor, which I'm sort of attached to, but appreciate Yves' comments on because I've never seen it from that perspective before), with some basic "questions" already created as threads, and then people could discuss them... so we could have topics like "What is the oldest deck?", "Where did tarot come from?", "How old is tarot?", "Why are there 22 cards?", "What does the word tarot mean?", "What are the three tarot 'patterns'?"... something like that and more questions can be added, and we can discuss the answers. We could all work together to come up with the questions, these are just off the top of my head. What do you think?

We could revive the building blocks thread, as an alternative, or we could look to it for some ideas on topics for the new area.

One of the issues that we face, as pointed out by Ross earlier, is that "we" don't agree on a lot of things ourselves, so fundamentally we either need to come up with the things we do agree on as something to start with, or we need to create an area that allows for disagreement, but doesn't go so far off that someone reading the topic would only get even MORE confused than when they started.

I'm open to suggestions, and do believe that a forum is a reflection of its participants; if you have been a contributer to the forum over the years, I definitely think you deserve a say in the future of it.

Well .. an "education story" of my life. It happened, that I became a Go player in my youth. Well, it takes a long time to become a good Go-Player. The Go-Club, which I entered, had at its top level players with a degree of Sho-Dan (= 1.Dan, lowest Dan level for amateurs; 6. Dan was then the highest amateur level). Go was then in Europe more a less a German/Austrian story. This did change in a few years.
The structure of the club was then, that "learning Go" wasn't easy. The development of the new players was slow, partly due to "lost interests" of the few already established 1.Dan players. We - as the generation of the advancing Go players in the Club - detected then Go literature and short after this participation of tournaments in other cities. At one of the tournaments, our meanwhile strongest was 2. Dan and he did win a tournament by beating players with the rank of 4.Dan. Well, these were people living "high in heaven" and we had no idea, that we would have any chance to beat them in a game. Those of us, who participated in the tournament collected at the evening after the success and there developed enthusiasm, and the birth of the believe, that we could do it and the already existing group structure between us formed to become a REAL group of some intensity, and within 1 1/2 - 2 years we became almost all that, what we desired: Strong players, partly at a level of 4.Dan then. Our quick development inspired players in other cities, which we met at tournaments.
The result became, that in the German players scene so much new strong Go players were generated as never before, and also more as in the phase which followed.
The essence of this success was FRIENDSHIP in combination with a specific interest (GO), which essentially had also the character of competition (it's a 2-person-game, where one player win against the other). As long the factor FRIENDSHIP ruled above the character of competition, things went well, but the appearance of EGOISTIC TENDENCIES made the whole turn into a less successful story. This was triggered in the GO GAME story by high prize money. I don't tell this story.
In this time we had also ideas about GOOD DIDACTIC. How to get more Go Players into our Go-Club - well, we experience in the moment the same problem and we discuss, what might be a wise strategy.
It was in the earlier Go-Story easy to see, that rather good Go-Players were rather NOT ideal when teaching Go. They had too much changed by their intensive development, they thought too complicated, similar as good Tarot historians might be not ideal to attract newcomers to become involved in Tarot History.
One member of our club then found opportunity to lay the foundation at another weekly playing evening dedicated to beginners at the university sport program, maybe 1984. One even could get a few money for it from the university.
Started by an experienced player, this job was given from time to time mostly to a student, mostly not a very good player. Occasionally it was visited also by other players of the "experienced club". As far I know, this institution still lives till nowadays. It guaranteed, that the connected Go club constantly got a few new players from this source each year. It helped, that the club survived in weak times over the decades of years, and it is now between the German clubs still the third after Berlin and Hamburg (big cities) as a city with roughly 300.000 persons only. In the last years players of the club and its extensions did win mostly the competition of the German youth champions ... well, that's nice.

So, this is a successful model. Trying to imitate it, might lead to the idea, that the best "Tarot History beginner place" might be a place with some independence of us, but accompanied by our friendship, perhaps a little bit sponsorship. But with their own freedom, for instance in their Forum structure

Well, this is somehow an alternative idea to the Aeclectic vision "All is one" ... which somehow leads to "control it all", "moderate it all", "don't allow freedom" ... which actually makes it so complicated to get there conditions "normal and necessary for Tarot History forums" and which appears with such absurdities, as we could recently perceive.

As an essence it would mean: make a button which leads to a beginner Forum. Install a Forum ... look for possible inhabitants, persons, who might take it. Help it a little bit, that it can live with some independence. If the project has success, the model might be repeated for other interests. Likely it will stay friendly to the mother forum long years, and members from there can float freely from there to here .. if they desire.
Aeclectic behaves, as if founding a forum would be a big mystery. Maybe this had been once, but it isn't anymore. Aeclectic behaves, as if there is limited web space. It isn't. Aeclectic behaves like "you shall not have another forum than us" ... when "tarothistory.com" engages for a different system with independent elements, that's quite another idea, well, in my eyes it has more sympathies than the other way.

Huck wrote:
"In this time we had also ideas about GOOD DIDACTIC. How to get more Go Players into our Go-Club - well, we experience in the moment the same problem and we discuss, what might be a wise strategy.
It was in the earlier Go-Story easy to see, that rather good Go-Players were rather NOT ideal when teaching Go. They had too much changed by their intensive development, they thought too complicated, similar as good Tarot historians might be not ideal to attract newcomers to become involved in Tarot History".

I thanks Huck for sharing is lived experience on GO practice.

When I was young I also made same observation on another type of activity: Martial Arts.

May be you knows that in this "sports", Top rank Masters (whatever their nationality Japanese, Chinese, or White fellows) don't accept (most of the time with rare exceptions) to teach their art to newcomers.
I would say that it's for good and bad reasons:

Good reasons: They are rather old and they have no time to loose with a long time period to spend for one or two young students.
They can't accept too much students because they are located in a limited place for example, sometimes far from "civilization". An option of life taken at a certain moment of their evolution by many humans.
They have understood that life is progression and errors are mandatory steps for evolution.
Time is on their side and they know that many newcomers will change their road after some years (or even months). Why “investing” in somebody that will stop and will not transmit what he received: A lack of energy and time for nothing.

Bad reasons: They have bad tempers frequently (wisdom is a goal but not mandatory a result let's say).
They are not patient with starter's errors.
They have too much concentrated their art, adapting it to their own body weak and strength.
They are too much individualized in fact.
They have stopped being curious about new ideas, technical, needs.
For your information, a Black belt level is a prerequisite for assisting courses of most of Masters.

I remember to non initiate that a black belt is mandatory to be authorized to open a school of Martial Art. For most of countries.
In Tarot there is no Black Belt procedure.... With good and bad consequences of this state of fact.
To resume my idea, I think that we need to be better organized with some “trainers” acting in a normal level area. For newcomers.
Tarot Historians who managed to “ride their Ego Tiger” (not all of them are able: Human is human…) MUST help trainers to increase their own level and feed them with “state of the art” news.
No need of Black Belt for this: Goodwill and honesty based on mutual confidence and respect.
To be continued.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:
Already RLG's Ur-Tarot question is overwhelmed by Huck's theories, and it is very hard for a beginner to sort out what is Huck's opinion and what is indisputable fact.

Dwtw

I must agree with you here. My original post was not intended to start a long thread on what the ur-tarot was, or the evidence for it, or any other theory in particular. It was actually meant as a rejoinder to the chatter on AT about whether a new sub-forum in Historical Research was necessary, etc. The real point of my post was just to stimulate some thoughts/discussion on the bigger picture of historical research vs. speculative theories, and how the various axes that are ground might be buried to some extent - not in each other's backs, but in a neutral zone, where each side doesn't take itself so seriously that it refuses to listen to what the other is saying.

I think the situation here on TH is much more clearly defined, with all the different rooms. AT just needs a unicorn terrace.

Huck-I would like to say I am surprised, but I can't- though it is a shame, really.

I saw your thread, saw the post, and knew (as you probably did) that it would be gone before a day was up. I was not expecting them to ban you from the forum- to me that is ridiculous. But, they cater to a certain populace, and are losing some great participants in the lunacy of it all.

The same thing happened with Ciro posted that he would not be on AT anymore. He didn't post anything else- just "I will not be on the forum, please feel free to email me..." and that was it. His post, plus any that quoted it, all disappeared into that purple mod heaven.

IMHO- the health of a forum such as AT is dependent on the quality of their membership. If they continue to alienate the artists/creators and historians- what will they have left? Not much in my opinion. Pretty much the "mall" of tarot forums, and- WATCH OUT KIDS!!!! It is pre-teen Saturday night!